They are among the rarest of rare plants.
They are only found in one place in the world, and that’s in the Channel Islands, off the Ventura, and Santa Barbara County coastlines.
And, for decades, they teetered on the brink of extinction. They are the Island Bedstraw, which is only found on Santa Cruz and San Miguel Islands, and the Santa Cruz Island Dudleya, which is just found on Santa Cruz Island.
The island bedstraw is a woody shrub, with tiny flowers. It lives on steep rocky slopes, coastal bluffs and sometimes in pine forests. They can grow to nearly four feet high, and have white flowers.
The Island dudleya is a flowering succulent. It's found on marine terraces on Santa Cruz Island. They grow from around eight inches to a foot tall, and have bright yellow flowers with red veins which bloom from spring to late summer.
The problem was what humans had done to the islands. There were ranches on the island, and that led to the introduction of grazing animals like sheep and pigs. The animals decimated many species of plants.
In 1997, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that 13 plants in the islands needed Endangered Species Act protections, because they were facing extinction. They included the Island Dudleya, and Island Bedstraw.
The grazing animals were removed from the islands, as part of an ongoing effort to remove non-native species.
"These two plant species were put on the Endangered Species List in 1997, and the major thing that has helped them is that non-native grazing animals were taken off the islands," said Ken Niessen, who is a botanist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Over that period of time they've improved, and stabilized enough so that we consider them recovered, and suitable for taking off the endangered species list."
It's a remarkable comeback. At one point, researchers worried that the plants were in danger of becoming extinct.
"I think we thought that a few decades ago, because there were very few plants in very small populations widely spaced apart," said Kathryn McEachern is a Research Ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
The efforts worked, and the two plants have been declared fully recovered. Surveys show there could be more than 120,000 Island Dudleya on Santa Cruz island, and more than 15,000 Island Bedstraw plants on Santa Cruz and San Miguel Islands.
McEachern said this shows the Endangered Species Act can work. But, she said the fight to save other endangered, and threatened plants in the Channel Islands is far from over, with other plants still facing the potential of extinction.
The final delisting notice for the plants was issued this week. A monitoring plan has been developed to verify that the species remains secure from the threat of extinction.
